While climbing up Monteagle today my truck over heated and went into automatic shut down, leaving me sitting on the shoulder of a very steep grade. I could see a sign that there was a rest area one mile further up the grade, and knew there was a truck stop about a mile past that. I decided that once the engine cooled down enough I would try to limp the truck up to the rest area, let it cool again there, and then limp into the truck stop. That didn't quite work as planned. When I slowly cli...

Ok, the much requested sequels to my first videos from the road. This is the first inatllments of this trip, the rest to be forthcoming.              

This is pretty much how I feel about it.    

Despite my best efforts I had yet to be blacklisted by anyone (that I know of). Until today.  I feel quite happy about the fact that I have been blacklisted by a complete moron for, guess what, pointing out the fact that he is in fact a complete moron. He's one of those patheitcally stupid religious types that rarely, if ever, types anything that even makes sense. Until today I had pretty much taken it kind of easy on this idiot as it was painfully obvious that he was an idiot and ya hav...

Just kicking back in a hotel in Paducah. There are probably worse places to be, but I'm not sure where just now. Once I got checked in I walked across the road thinking I'd have a bite to eat and maybe a couple of cold ones at the O'Charley's. A nice big sign on the door announced that they were non-smoking. I shrugged my shoulders and walked a little further down to a joint with a sign that advertised they were a restaurant and bar. I walked into that place and was met by the manager as w...

Well they had my truck repaired by noon today, so things got off to a pretty good start despite the rain. I hopped in, hooked to my trailer, and chained down my load. Everything went pretty well. I am working on beating the IL over sized curfew now and, baring any problems, pretty well have that covered. I'm spending the night in Bloomington, IL and can make the KY line in just about 5 hours tomorrow morning. If I leave here at six I can be out of IL well before noon. KY has no such curfew...

I'm back in the hotel. The company that was supposed to over night the part needed for my truck...didn't. In fact, when the service writer called them, they hadn't bothered to ship it at all. WTF? Seems they had some kind of communication problem and someone failed to follow through on the promised shipment. I was pretty much freaking out on the service writer. "I have an over sized load that needs to be in GA Monday! Here it is Friday afternoon already and the truck isn't any closer to being...

I got a call from the doc. He had consulted with the surgeon, who reviewed the MRI results. Turns out the surgeon says the MRI was misread! The growth hasn't passed into the bone, brain, or anywhere else and is localized to the skin. Very cool news. I do have to wonder about how an MRI can be misread though. I thought the whole point of an MRI was to get a very clear image of the area in question. I guess there must still be some human interpretation to it. Still haven't heard anything abo...

All things considered it's been a nice few days at home but it's time to hit the road again. I'm enjoying my morning coffee and then I'll finish packing up to go. We had some nasty storms here last night and there is some flooding here and there, but I am pretty sure my route out will be clear by the time I am ready to go. I don't have a load, or even a trailer as I dropped the tow away load in Miami, so I'll be bobtailing all the way to WI. Luckily the tow away load pays for the round tri...

I am seriously loath to post this but  feel like I should. I saw my doctor Thursday about the growth on the top of my head. It wasan unofficial visit. He wasn't happy about it and took a biopsy andthen had me go over to the hospital for an MRI, which he made surestayed off the books until my health insurance kicks in. He's goodabout that sort of thing. He called me earlier today about the results and I've been mulling themover all day.. He won't get the biopsy results until next w...

What do you think? I've heard that as the answer to a question, both on television and in person, several times today. In many ways it's the perfect answer to an obviously stupid question. I've decided that, for my own personal amusement, I am going to make that my standard answer to any and all stupid questions for the next period of time to be determined by the hearing of an even more amusing retort, or until I just get bored with it. What do you think?

Just a short video showing a few of the effects on my Linux desktop using the Compiz Fusion desktop environment.  

The discovery of fire is probably one of the most important discoveries in the history of Man. I'm making the most of it and have the grill fired up. I'm not grilling anything fancy, just some burgers. Those, along with some baked beans, will make tonight's dinner. I don't think anything tastes as good as food cooked outdoors. And no wimpy gas for me, it's charcoal all the way baby! I keep meaning to pick up a better grill, but my tiny little table-top grill serves me well enough. Perhaps ...

Ah well, nothing lasts forever. I was working with my digital camera today and all of a sudden it is no longer detected by the computer's usb port. Crap. It worked a couple of days ago. I went through some troubleshooting steps and determined that the usb port on the camera has died. It's a  Canon PowerShot A75, and it'ss a few years old. Not exactly a top of the line model, but it wasn't the cheapest either. I guess I got my money's worth out of it sso I really can't complain. I'll r...

Found this linked on a forum, pretty creative and amusing.   http://alanbecker.deviantart.com/art/Animator-vs-Animation-34244097